Adoption Books

I bought this book for my boyfriend who is a Korean adoptee and may be unlikely to find his birth parents. This book provided him, and me, with a better understanding of adoption in Korea, and a sense of peace that perhaps the letters from these women might be what his mother would say to him. I highly recommend this book for both adoptees and the people who love them. It is helpful to understand that the cultural context of adoption in Korea.

If you're a Korean adoptee born before 1990 (I am) and you're looking for more insight on why you were given up for adoption, this is not the book for you.

The "letters" written by the women in the book will seem contrived and form-like in nature after you have read 10 of them. I understand that these women are all in the same situation and location therefore the letters might seem similar in nature, but honestly, they did not provide any other information or emotional support for me. Perhaps, I am not the audience this book is aimed towards, however, I found it extremely disappointing.

As an adoptive Mom, I have read countless books on adoption. None have touched my heart like this one. This book gives dignity to the choice of relenquishing a child for the sake of their future. It shows the internal battle that rages within a young mother who is forced to make a decision because of her situation & cultural stigmas. All the stories take you to Ae Ran Won & show you that before we were Momma, there was someone who will forever have left an indelible mark on the hearts of our precious chosen children. A MUST READ FOR ANY ADOPTIVE PARENT!!

I have a couple of concerns about this book. As a mom who has lost a child to adoption, I am familiar with the "writing a letter to your child" right after placement and filling up the pages with words of hope. However, often times, this is not the full scope of the reality of what has happened to the mom, and it is a once done thing, and is frozen in time. It doesn't seem to go into depth of the sense of loss that these women will feel later, how they will be affected negatively by the loss of their child, despite their greatest hopes forced into making this decision through lack of any real options by profit making agencies.

I would love to read a book that is about mothers who've lost children in other countries twenty years after placement (or so) to talk about their experience and how it affected them for the rest of their life.

I thought that the essays in this collection were heartfelt, to say the least -- at times gutwrenching. However, the book's editing is so unilateral as to leave me wondering just how universal the feelings presented in these essays are.

All the women who contributed to this collection were at the same maternity home. As one part of their couseling and education they were required to write a letter to the child they were placing for adoption -- [some of] the letters that were chosen for this collection. As another part of their education, they attended religious training. So, many of the letters are quite religious in nature. Most are extremely emotional -- emotional language that may not be typical of every day life nor even of these particular women, since it was part of the "exercise" to explore this in their letter writing.

In looking to read how birth parents feel, I found this book too uniform -- same facility, same training, same counseling per author -- to tell me whether or not this is indicitive of a typical birthmother response, or a typical Korean birthmother response. I'd have loved to hear from birthmothers from other institutions or hospitals, with varying religious beliefs, pre- and post- education, and at different times in the process.

It was clear to me from the introduction that the editors had a large part in conveying the birthmother experience -- the way they chose the letters, the way they organized them, how few letters were chosen from many, how they tell the reader to respond to them, and their own viewpoints plainly stated in ways that were entirely consistent with the material presented. I found the editorial comments at the start nearly too consistent with the material in the book, as it told me just how much the editors' own feelings influenced their choices.

It's unfortunate, because I think this is a stellar idea for a book. But the one thing it lacked was the precise element I sought -- How do birthmothers tend to feel? Not, How do birthmothers at Ae Ran Won who have received certain training and instruction to write their feelings tend to feel, but what is their true experience?

I purchased this book as a reunion with the birthmom's of my two is inevitable and welcome. We have a semi-open adoption with both birthmoms as they are welcome to write any time and we write them a couple of times a year.

This book will have me better prepared to help my kids through their reunions and after. I bought the book to educate myself as to what we may or may not encounter during and after the reunion.

The book is mildy dry in some parts but definitely a worthy read.

This book seems like it would be good for someone where both the adoptee and birthmom want to have a relationship. Since it only considered reunions that were past 6 months, it did not give any insight on the ones that don't make it that far, and why.

Also seemed like a good book for a case where the birthmom was a loving woman who unselfishly gave up her child for adoption, and still thinks of him/her on their birthday, etc.... The book was a little too rosy, though - it didn't seem to recognize that not all birthmoms are so wonderful. I was looking for a gift for my teenage sister who wants to find her birthmom, however, her birthmom was a complete mess. The conclusion chapter said reunions can improve self-esteem because the adoptee finds out that they weren't "dumped". Well my sis WAS dumped, so is it still a good thing for her?

Overall, I think this book would have actually enhanced the fantasies my sister has about her birthmom, so I decided to return it and keep looking.

I found this book to be thought provoking and a great help in understanding the plight of SOME birth mothers. All adoptions are not the same and whether or not you find your birth mother/father, this book is a very good resource to start thinking outside the box. It gives a viewpoint outside of 'us'. In reality, as adoptees, it really is usually all about 'me'. As an adult, 40+, reunited with my birthmother for the past 2.5 years, this book gave me a clearer understanding of the difficulties that she may be going through in this process as well as opening my mind to view the experience in a different perhaps more profound way. My only advice to younger readers is read EVERY book you can. There are NO clear cut answers. There is no magical answer. BUT every book will give you some insight. You may or may not agree with everything the author says, however, if you can take one thing and learn about the process, or yourself or even your birthmother's experience, then it will be worth the price.

In the late 1980s, there were few books for birthmothers. This book validated the emotional pain I had carried (silently) during the decades after surrendering my child to a system of closed adoption. One of the authors is a birthmother. Thank you, Judith and Linda, for a pioneering work which, I'm sure, helped many people!

I was sadly disappointed in this book--did not find myself (a reunited birthmother)on any of the pages or find any useful information. I had a hard time continuing to read this dry, often clinically written review of the experiences of 30 birthmothers who relinquished their children in the 50s and 60s.

The book spent the first half going into detail about the circumstances of several adoptions from the get-go. I was expecting a book that mostly addressed the issues facing reunited birthmothers, what to watch out for during the initial contact and the developing relationship with a located adoptee.

Perhaps there is some useful information in the last half of this book, but by the time I got to that part I was so turned off by the writing style that I had shifted into "skim-and-scan" mode just to keep my attention from wandering to more interesting subjects, such as the laundry!

I think this was a well written book, that covered many topics on adopting after going through the craziness of infertility. I actually felt empowered and like I had options when reading this book. My husband and I are now on the road to adoption. Not everything in this book applies to every situation, but it was great to read.

There was not much useful information in this book (unless you like being talked down to), and I also noticed a lot of incorrect information in what there was. The author comes off as pompous and sort of a "know it all" in many areas, which is a bit odd for a person who obviously doesn't know as much as she is claiming to know. Our family has adopted four children over the recent years, all in separate adoptions, and I can tell you for a fact that the author is way off base in some of her claims. I would not recommend this book to anyone because adoption is a very tricky process, and a lot can go wrong, especially if you are following incorrect information from a supposed "expert" such as in a book like this.

I read this book shortly after dh and I decided to look into adoption. The author goes on and on about getting through your grief over infertility and it made me even more depressed about my situation!! She goes through different stages that a couple has to grieve before they are ready to move on and adopt such as the grief of never sharing a pregnancy with your spouse, the grief of never having a biological child etc. etc. etc. To me, adoption is not about grieving over what I am going to miss out on, it is about embracing life's path and looking at what I do get to experience such as the joy of finding out there is a child for us, and the excitment of sharing the adoption experience with my dh. IF sucks, I will be the first one to admit that!!! But life is what you make of it and I don't think that I need to grieve all these different steps before I am ready to embrace adoption.

This is by far the best book I read after my journey through infertility and as I began considering adoption. My husband and I now have a 3 1/2 year old son from Russia and we are in the process of adopting child number two. The truth is that adopting is extremely different from having a biological child and it is very important to work through your emotional issues before becoming an adoptive parent. I am grateful that I took the time to work through the issues addressed in this book before adopting my son. I am a better mother as a result. I highly recommend this book!

Of all the books and many, many websites my husband and I have read since we began looking into adoption, "Adopting After Infertility" ranks near, if not at, the top of my list. The best part about this book is how sympathetic Johnston is to [prospective] adoptive parents. I've gone back to this book a few times, after reading more elsewhere and learning more, for her balanced, direct, and kind style. As well as easier on the psyche than others, "Adopting After Infertility" is informative. Not as in depth regarding laws (state by state, country by country) as other sources, there is plenty to get you started in knowing the types of adoption and choices available. Invaluable for making me feel human. An excellent starting point and grounding reference along the way as we encounter the daunting realities. Emotionally, Johnston keeps the reader in line by reminding us that, though we don't have choices or resources we might wish to, we DO have many, which she describes quite well and accurately, providing information unavailble in the "how to" stlye accounts or in the "pro" or "con" material. Johnston is soft and kind, and empowering at once. If you are considering adoption, whether or not you are infertile, I highly recommend this book.

Wow, but this was one of those books that was a complete waste of a dead tree! The characters were flat, whiney at best, and seemed to have no desire beyond the need to prove themselves morally superior to rest of the world. I don't care how you turn it, it's still obnoxious.

The story tries to pass itself off as a semi sci-fi examination of the positives and negatives of humanity and its morals, all through a teenage boy who is learning that there is something off about his adoption.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just too cynical to appreciate these kinds of things, but if it can't give me good characters and a decent plot, the message doesn't matter all that much.

I thought this was a great story, but was very distracted in the early chapters by a glaring (to this California native) error in geography. The family is supposed to be vacationing in Santa Barbara. The text refers to their visits to Hollywood Studios and Disneyland as if Santa Barbara is in the LA area -- it's not. You certainly can visit those places from St. B. but you'll be driving 2-3 hours each way. Later the boyfriend, Luke, says he wants to go to a surfing competition UP the coast in Ventura. Ventura is an hour or so SOUTH of Santa Barbara. This was really annoying me so I had to mentally substitute Santa Monica (in LA and fits the details better) for Santa Barbara. Blacker and his editor need to look at a map.

This book is about a boy named "Thomas Wisdom." His family is soooooo perfect compared to everyone else. He has this weirdo for a friend named "Gip Sanchez." He is one of those people you would call a poor geek in your school. Gip has a lot of suspicion about Thomas's family. Gip snuck into Thomas's dad's computer and found a document with a whole lot of funny numbers on it. They decoded it and found out that it was an adoption document for a kid named "Michael Garnahm." That turns out to be Thomas's real identity. He was adopted by the Wisdom's. Mr. and Mrs. Wisdom tried to explain to Thomas about the adoption, but Thomas just wouldn't listen. He was so frustrated with them. Thomas asked Gip to help him find his real mother. Thomas eventually finds his mother after a while. A man named CY (Mr. and Mrs. Wisdom's boss) came over and asked Thomas if he wanted to go with him for a little while. Later that day at the plant Thomas found out about these things called "Angels." He also found out about this secrete plan to save the world and mankind. You will have to read the book to find out what happens at the end of the book.
I really liked this book. I don't like to read that much, but this book takes off pretty quick though. When I read books, if it doesn't get interesting pretty quick then I get bored pretty easily.
I would recommend this book to people who do not read a whole eternally lot. I thought it was quite interesting. If I am describing you then this would be a great book to read. You can also read this book if you do like to read books that are in the future a little bit.

Have you ever wondered if your parents are from the CIA of even angels? This book starts with Thomas and his perfect family. He has a mom, a dad, a sister, and a dog. Gip is a boy that is very in dependent. They are talking about their families one day in school, and Thomas starts talking about how it bothers him that his family is so perfect. Thomas and Gip both go to Thomas's house and go through Thomas's dad's computer. Thy find a page full of numbers which they know means something. Gip prints it out and takes it. A few days later, Thomas finds out that Gip gave the page to their math teacher. Later on, Thomas goes on a family vacation with his family an his sister's boyfriend, Luke. While they are there, their parents have a meeting with Seraph, which is the company they work for. Thomas decides he wants to follow them and see what was going on. He goes into a place where he saw all these people laying there and figures out that those are angels. Also in the room were his parents. When they get back to their house, Gip gives Thomas the news about the page full of numbers, which their math teacher decoded. Gip tells Thomas that he was adopted by angels. Thomas gets frustrated and decides to run away with Gip. He takes Thomas to a place where there were a lot of kids that apparently ran away too. Later on Thomas goes back to his angel parents and decided to forgive them for not telling him that he was adopted.
People who like mysteries would like to read this book because the mystery never ends. I think that the angels lived on little disks was interesting.

Have you wondered if everyone around you weren't actually humans but people sent to Earth to help save mankind? Sounds weird right? In the book, The Angel Factory by Terence Blacker, a kid my age finds out that everything he ever knew was one big secret. The story is about Thomas Wisdom, a smart popular kid with a loving family who supports him in everything that he does. They do seem a little too perfect but Thomas doesn't seem to think much of it until one day, everything changes. Thomas' friend, Gip, helps him realize that him and his family isn' t like any ordinary family. This journey of finding out who he really is takes him from London to California.
Terence Blacker keeps people on their toes throughout this entire book, and he never gets his readers get bored. I would recommend this book to young adults who like to read books that will keep them interested to the very end of the book. The surprise ending will make the book worth reading.

I thought this book was very good and "true" reality of the adoption world. I would recommend this book for anyone adopting, domestic or internationally.

A close friend visited me on a recent weekend. Needing a good book to read she pulled "Beyond Good Intentions" from my bookshelf.
After she finished reading my friend reported it to be one of the best glimpses yet into the mind of a white woman.

Her comment caught me by surprise. My friend and I are both women of color and we have kids who are transracially adopted.
Her children are black and two of my kids are Asian, and we're both rooted deeply in our ethnic communities.

Admittedly when I first read Beyond Good Intentions the fact that it was written for a white audience went over my head.
I only picked up on the fact that these were 10 important issues adoptive parents of Asian children typically struggled with.

While I liked the book, I felt that while it addressed
issues of race, it gave parents permission to be intellectually aware, but didn't consider how to live as a mixed race family
and loose the idea of continuing to live as white, as white parents raising children of color. Yet after re-reading the book I give it rave reviews.

The concept of adoptive parents creating a toolbox to fix themselves (instead of fixing their children) has only just begun
and Cheri Register's "Beyond Good Intentions" is an excellent beginning.

I had high hopes for Beyond Good Intentions. The premise seemed wonderful and I thought I would really get a lot out of it. I was wrong.

The first thing that disappointed me was the physical size of the book. They call it a coffee table book not because it should be stored on the coffee table (because personally, I'm not in the habit of inviting people over and saying, "here's a cup of tea, and feel free to browse this book. I think you'll find the section on 'Judging our country superior' to be particuarly enlightening.") but because it's just simply too small to be a regular book. It's about 2/3 the size of a normal hardcover book, and only has 180 pages. My first thought was "this doesn't give you much room to really explore any of these ideas," and I was right.

An issue that pervades the whole of the book is that Register has clearly fallen into the trap of "my experience is everyone's experience." She speaks in truly generalized terms (although every once in a while will pay lip service to "things may be different for you") under the assumption that everyone is just like her. As another reviewer said, this book is written for a white person. I'd say the book is written for a white woman of Scandinavian descent living in a small town in the Midwest vastly removed from most cultural resources for her internationally-adopted children and a place where they're probably the only Asians in town. I only point these specifics out because Register refers to them herself a number of times in the book. While this certainly is the case for some people, it's not the case for everyone, yet Register seems to lack that awareness.

Each chapter does open with an extreme example, but the extremism doesn't necessarily stop there. For example, on page 35 she says:

"As I walk through my gentrifying neighborhood, I often meet younger adoptive parents beaming over cute little kids tucked into padded and shaded state-of-the-art strollers. I smile back knowingly, but don't dare say what I'm thinking: Don't be surprised if your daughter shoplifts, or slips into a deep depression, or flies into a rage and threatens you with a knife before falling into a sobbing heap on the floor. Don't be surprised if your son fires obscenities at you, or skips his classes senior year and barely graduates, or fails to come home several nights in a row and then blames his absence on your inhospitality."

Hunh? You mean that my child is destined to become a delinquent simply by virtue of being adopted? Come on.

Once the discussion veered toward colonialism, I got very frustrated and disgusted. 20th century colonialism is not responsible for international adoption--or I should say that 20th century colonialism is not responsible for abandoned orphans who lack homes. I will be the first to decry the evils of colonialism, believe me, but white Europeans did not invent the idea. Occupation and colonization has been going on for centuries. It is not the fault of white Europeans that China, for example, values boys over girls.

Overall I found this book very short on insight but very frustrating and rather depressing. If you want a book that makes you feel like nothing you do is right, then this is a good one for you. If you want a book that truly explores these issues from an adoptee's point of view, look elsewhere.

I too found this book offensive. As the mother of three bio kids, looking into adopting I found this book less than helpful. I almost put it down after reading this


"As I walk through my gentrifying neighborhood, I often meet younger adoptive parents beaming over cute little kids tucked into padded and shaded state-of-the-art strollers. I smile back knowingly, but don't dare say what I'm thinking: Don't be surprised if your daughter shoplifts, or slips into a deep depression, or flies into a rage and threatens you with a knife before falling into a sobbing heap on the floor. Don't be surprised if your son fires obscenities at you, or skips his classes senior year and barely graduates, or fails to come home several nights in a row and then blames his absence on your inhospitality."

As a parent I realize how easy it is to fall into a "been there done that" attitude but every situation is different and most of the problems she describes are true for biological children as well as adopted children. Every teenager fights to figure out who there are, no matter what their dna is.

I was hoping this book would help highlight some experiences awaiting me as an adoptive parent, waiting for my child from Korea. Instead, the 10 scenarios the author uses to construct her arguements are overly-simplistic and patronizing to adoptive parents. While the Author is attempting to generalize and give constructive advice on some common pitfalls, in reality she creates a negative feeling right off the bat by saying she is 'weery' of the 'popularity' of international adoption.

International adoption is not 'popular' in any meaningful way (the statics reflect the truly small percentage of international adoptions.) And by articulating this at the outset, how can a prospective adoptive parent not feel slighted? Like European immigrants that rant against current immigration allowances, the Author creates an unhelpful, hypocritical dynamic.

Fianlly, the 10 topics/questions she attempts to flush out in this slim volume are overly general, and unrealistic scenarios for sophisticated, college-educated readers.

This was a very nice book about different races and adoption. NOT the best book I have seen. It lacked something that I cannot put my finger on.

hi, as others have said, this is a beautiful book with a beautiful sentiment about love and bonding in adoptive families. But it made me so unhappy reading it, and then of course I had to figure out why.


And my thought is, that the "I don't ....." sections on each page emphasize the child's difference and separateness from the adoptive family, and the juxtaposition seems (to me) to make it seem as though the "but I have ...." sections are supposed to be in compensation. So - I think I would have given this 5 stars if the text had emphasized the shared parts and commonality between child and family, while making the differences obvious in pictures only or else not starting each page with the difference/separateness.

I bought this book for my adopted niece. Couldn't be happier with it. It really lets her know how much she is loved. If you want another family fairytale, you may want to purchase The Wallace Dream: The Adventures of the Baby Seekers Both books are great.

My five-and-a-half year old and I read this book recently (after a conversation about ways we look the same and ways we don't, and ways she might look like her birthparents and ways she might look like me). At the end of the book, she said, "That warms my heart. Can we read it again?" Tonight, she said, "Can we read that book that made my heart warm?"


I agree with some other reviewers: if you're not a family that prays together, the praying page is a little awkward, but still, nice to illustrate the variety of things families do.

This book is chock full of really lovely sentiment regarding how similar we are ... on the inside...(gross paraphrase)

Unfortunately, the illustrations are freakish. I don't know how else to characterize them. My kids were totally turned off by the way people looked in the story. The mom on the first page looks like one of those dolls with the blue eyes that open and close.

On the other hand, I could see that my 10 year old was intrigued by the text. She couldn't stand the illustrations, though.

Excellent condition - received on time. I can't WAIT until my little boy can understand what it means so I can read it to him.

We have not adopted yet, but hope to from Ukraine. I hope to read this to my children someday, but until then I read it myself to understand from a child's perspective what the adoption process means to them. I was happy to see a book about Eastern European adoptions since most seem to relate to China.

I adopted my daughter from Russia at the age of 2. She's now 5, and I recently started reading this book to her. She has asked for it almost every night since we got it, and last night she asked me if we can keep this book forever and ever. I don't recall her ever asking that about any book before.

When I'm reading it to her, I change "orphanage" to "Baby Home" about half the time. She tries to sort out which babies are girls and which are boys, insists on counting the cribs and babies each time, and she tells me that the little boy thinks the dad is going to give him a shot, before we get to that part of the story. I don't know how much she remembers of her time in a Russian orphanage, but something is resonating for her.

Another aspect of this that ties into our own story is that I had already told her that the judge in our case was a woman, so this seems to her to be very credible.

My son really enjoys having this book read to him--though before I can even start, I have to assure him that all the children will get "picked" after the story ends. The art work is charming and the story quite sweet. Like other reviewers, we have avoided the term "orphange" at our house, and I almost didn't get this book after reading the comments about it. With so few choices for books about Russian boys, I decided to give it a try, deciding in the end, I'd rather he heard the word from me than others. It hasn't been a problem at all. This is a very good story for young boys adopted from Russia. Never heard the term "Mamachka" before, though--perhaps that's Romanian?

I found myself rather amazed reading reviews of this book that mention its "oversimplification" of the story. Well, the story is told from the point of view of an infant who looks to be not much more than a year old! Of course it is simple!

But the emotions and issues running throughout the book are definitely not simple ones. The beauty of this book is that it shows adoption from the baby's - Borya's - perspective. His comfort in his simple world and his routine. The smells. The language and the music. Then suddenly, 2 strangers who "talk funny" are are called Mama and Papa enter the picture.

His comfort zone is gone. Things smell different and taste different. He worries about who will feed and change and burp him.

Frankly, I think this book should be required reading for anyone planning to adopt a child from Eastern Europe. I know that I wish I had read it before we traveled to Azerbaijan to adopt our son. All of the emotions Borya experiences were the same for our son.

Adoptive parents must be careful not to allow their joy to overshadow the fear and uncertainty that is going through the mind of the child. This book helped me see things from my son's perspective - albeit 3 years late!

I highly recommend it to any family formed in Eastern Europe. The story will "grow" as your child grows. He will find news things in it and ask different questions. But it is a very good book!

In Cindys Glory, Cindy and Samantha showed that March To Glory, the stolen grey colt had a talent on the racetrack. Glory shows promise as a great racehorse. And Cindy is finally addoped by the Mcleans. Both stolen horse and orphan child both found a home at Whitebrook, a racing and breeding stable. But Mike reese and Ashleigh Griffen, both owners of Whitebrook Farm have found Glorys real owner and they want to sell Glory at an auction and Cindy still hasnt made a real home at Whitebrokk and the Mcleans. Cindy is soo sure that Glory had the potientle as a racehorse and a great one and Cindy tries to convince Ashleigh and Mike to buy Glory since they cant keep him now. But will Cindy have time to help Glory when she is in trouble herself? And will Glory and Cindy find their dream home at Whitebrook and have Glory do many great things. Find out if Glory and Cindy find another dieasterious home. Or stay at Whiotebrook. Or find out from me at Blades60@aol.com

The Cindy and second generation eventing portions of the series were dark days for Thoroughbred. The plots have since switched back to racing and the newest few books have been exceptional. Just as we thought there was hope for the Thoroughbred series to be restored to its former glory Harper Collins has decided to end the series abruptly after #72. With such a dedicated following and online fan base with members from all over the world, this is a classic and beloved series that has inspired many people and provided horse fans with vicarious thrills and adventure. Ashleigh saved Wonder, now it's up to you to help save Thoroughbred. [...]

It is a great book like the others in the series, but a little far-fetched the way she learns how to ride. I love this series though, it realy exposes the racing life. The complete series is a great one. Some of the books are better than others though.

This book is a bomb. It was sad when they had to take Glory away.

Cindy's Glory is the last book in the Thoroughbred series that Joanna Campbell wrote herself. As of spring 2003, the series has grown to 57 titles, 4 super editions, three reissues, and a spin-off Ashleigh series, which makes the original 14 books and 2 super editions even more precious. Most loyal readers agree that Joanna Campbell, as the original author and creater, was the best. She created real situations with flawed but likable characters. Even Cindy's Glory, however, slips a little on the scale.

Cindy's Glory is the story of Cindy Blake, an orphan who is staying temporarily at Whitebrook Farm with Ian and Beth MacLean, and their daughter Samantha. In the previous book, Cindy's Runaway Colt, Cindy found a stray colt named Glory and hid him while she tried to convince the MacLeans to save him from his abusive owners - who, it turned out, had stolen him. Now he is up for auction, so Cindy and her friend Heather Gilbert determine to train him as a racehorse to prove he's good enough for Whitebrook to buy.

Campbell is notorious for having her heroines - Ashleigh, the original character who started the series, and then Samantha - go off slightly half-cocked when it comes to horses. You really have to ignore the fact that two twelve-year-old girls are galloping a racehorse; if you do you'll be able to handle the whole book. Don't get hung up on the fact that it's totally unreasonable; this is one example of the way Campbell was definitely on the way out when she wrote this book.

Otherwise Campbell does a good job. Cindy's fear at being taken away from her foster home at Whitebrook is very real, as is her gratitude at being part of a loving family. And her relationship with Glory is much like Ashleigh's with her beloved mare Wonder, but not a carbon copy. Longtime readers will manage to find parallels and enjoy the bond between them, but it won't feel like Campbell ran out of things to say and just cut-and-pasted Ashleigh and Wonder stories.

Joanna Campbell wrote Thoroughbred books #1-14, the super editiongs Ashleigh's Christmas Miracle and Ashleigh's Diary, and the first three books of the Ashleigh series: Lightning's Last Hope, A Horse for Christmas, and Waiting for Stardust. She also wrote Battlecry Forever! and Star of Shadowbrook Farm, which were released as part of the "Ashleigh's Book Collection" series. If you plan to read Thoroughbred I recommend you start with #1 and go up, because the original 14 books really were the best.

Corporate Creativity is a good read for a person that is looking for examples of how innovative thinkers working within a company came up with ideas to save money. The book is riddled with examples of stories that come from large organizations that made cost-cutting measures due to the creativity of an employee. Examples come from many large corporations, such as 3M, American Airlines, and Kodak. The authors outline their six essential steps to corporate creativity, alignment, self-initiated activity, unofficial activity, serendipity, diverse stimuli, and within company communication, providing real examples all along the way.

There is one particular aspect of the book that could use improvement. I thought it would be better for Robinson and Stern to weave a few narratives throughout all six of their steps. Instead, they jump around between numerous stories that fit any single step. This leaves the reader puzzled as to how the authors steps can be applied to their organization. Seemingly cookie cutter examples that fit perfectly within the parameters of what Robinson and Stern are trying to describe are all the reader gets. The stories are good and entertaining, yet there is no explanation as to how these examples can be digested by the reader and used in their own corporations.

This is a good starting point for anyone that is intersted in corporate creativity. By focusing on examples and not implementation, the authors have not provided clear means for the utilization for their ideas. Examples that have worked in other companies are great, but the authors do not provide enough help in linking those past occurences with the problems of the current reader.

The book is good for readability and wide ranging examples of creativity in action. But I found its gee-whiz diagnoses of why and how creativity occur are superficial. OK for a weekend reading and maybe idea generation, but not of much practical use.

You can improve your company's performance by increasing creativity and fostering employee innovation. Most creative acts are unexpected. Therein lies your company's creative potential. A company is creative when its employees do something new and possibly useful without being directly shown or taught. Creativity can and should happen in every organization, including companies with highly standardized procedures. While creativity is intangible, you can see the results of it in your company's improvements and innovations.

The first five chapters provide an overview of creativity, outlining the six essential elements that creativity requires. In the following chapters, the authors detail the six elements, provide several case studies to illustrate their points and show how to achieve each aspect of creativity. This is a useful book for any executive who wants his or her company, and the people in it, to realize their full creative potential. We at getAbstract recommend this book to managers and executives in any industry.

"Most companies are aware that their creative 'potential' greatly exceeds their creative 'performance.' The problem is that they don't know what to do about it. We believe that this potential cannot be realized until people recognize where it actually lies. Consider this. Most creative acts, as they now occur in companies, are not planned for and come from where they are least expected. It is impossible to predict 'what' they will be, 'who' will be involved in them, and 'when' and 'how' they will happen. This is the true nature of corporate creativity, and it is here that a company's creative potential really lies. For corporate creativity, the real power is in the unexpected" (from the Introduction).

In this context, in describing the corporate creativity, Alan G. Robinson and Sam Stern write that a company is creative when its employees do something new and potentially useful without being directly shown and taught. And they argue that in every unexpected creative act the following six essential elements are key to promoting consistent corporate creativity:

1. 'Alignment' is the degree to which the interests and actions of every employee support the organization's key goals. Strong alignment requires three things: *clarity about what the key goals of the organization are, *commitment to initiatives that promote the key goals, *accountability for actions that affect the key goals.

2. 'Self-initiated activity.' The majority of creative acts in companies are self-initiated, which explains why they are unanticipated by management. To promote it, companies only have to unleash what is already present. The key is an effective system for responding to employee ideas, which must have five characteristics. The system must: *reach everyone, *be easy to use, *have strong follow-through, *document ideas, *be based on intrinsic motivation.

3. 'Unofficial activity,' work done without direct official support, is what makes it possible for a company to go where it never expected to. Every unexpected creative act begins with a period of unofficial activity, which might be a matter of minutes or years.

4. 'Serendipity' combines a fortunate accident with sagacity. Fortunate accidents can be promoted through strategies that provoke and exploit accidents. Sagacity can be promoted by expanding the company's human potential beyond its immediate needs.

5. 'Diverse stimuli.' A stimulus can either push someone in a completely new direction or give that person fresh insight into what her or she has already set out to do. There are four strategies companies can use to promote diverse stimuli: *identify stimuli and provide them to employees, *rotate employees into every job they are capable of doing, *arrange for employees to interact with those outside the company who are likely to be the source of stimuli, *create opportunities for employees to bring into thr organization stimuli they get on their own.

6. 'Within-company communication.' Every company tries to ensure effective communication between employees who depend on each other to do their work. However, most organizations overlook the importance of unanticipated communication between employees who do not normally work together. And these exchanges of information often lead to unexpected creative acts. There are three ways a company can promote within-company communication: *provide opportunities for employees who do not normally interact with each other to meet, *ensure that every employee has a sufficient understanding of the organization's activities to be able to tap its resources and expertise, *create a new organizational priority: all employees should know the importance of being responsive to requests for information or help from other employees.

Finally, Robinson and Stern write that "If the six elements are implemented in your organization, its overall level of creativity will certainly rise. Use them yourself and you may very well find yourself in the middle of a creative act...Our journey led us to 'discover' the power of the unexpected. Your journey will lead you to 'realize' it."

Highly recommended.

Corporate Creativity is not an oxymoron. Robinson and Stern have written a good book that explores the key concepts that based on their work differentiate a creative organization from those that are not. The key steps the book expands on are that corporate creativity stems from: 1-Allignment 2-Self initiated activity 3-Unofficial activity 4-Serendipity 5-Deverse Stimuli 6-Within-company communication

While the book does a great job at exploring these concepts and gives excellent examples, what I found lacking was the "how-to" compontent.

As the author of Aha! - 10 Ways To Free Your Creative Spirit and Find Your Great Ideas, I am always looking for good books on the topic I am most passionate about. As far as creativity books, this one takes a unique perspective, the corporate rather than the individual. I applaud their work in this regard. Their examples are well-researched, and from a variety of industries.

If you are looking to dig deep into the field of organizational creativity, this is an excellent addition to your library.

this book is written for anyone who knows NOTHING about transracial/transcultural adoption. It feels like it was written for children, yet it wasn't. This is truly a waste of money. There are so many good books out there, dont' waste your money on this one.

This book is a great resouce for extended family memebers! There probably won't be much new info for us who are adopting but we purchased a copy for both sets of grandparents and it has provided them with the perfect amount of insight into some of the issues that we deal with.

I thought this book contained information that is common-sense and basic. Not bad if you are not familiar with the subject at all, but otherwise not the most useful book out there.

This book has many good ideas. However, some are fairly simplistic. I was looking for more detailed ideas. Still would recommend this for anyone adopting abroad.

Great book to give to family and friends. We got one for each side of the family. It talks about adults can answer questions from strangers. It also gives some good responses to questions for kids in the family.